The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is Australia's national transport safety investigator. The ATSB's function is to improve safety and public confidence in the aviation, marine and rail modes of transport. The ATSB is Australia's prime agency for the independent investigation of civil aviation, rail and maritime accidents, incidents and safety deficiencies.

Aviation safety issues and actions

Recommendation issued to: AirServices Australia

Output text

Safety Recommendation

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that
Airservices Australia conduct a review to determine why flight
crews were able to submit flight plans and operate on non-standard
routes in contravention of the AIP, which required crews to plan on
routes provided to the air traffic control system by the
publication of air route specifications.

Initial response

Initial response

Date issued:

01 February 2005

Response from:

AirServices Australia

Action status:

Monitor

Response text:

Airservices Australia is considering the impact of introducing
the following flight planning requirement into AIP: "A field 18
entry identifying the routing non compliance is required whenever
flight plan details are filed between city pairs contrary to AIP
requirements".

Further correspondence

Further correspondence

Date issued:

17 February 2011

Response from:

AirServices Australia

Response status:

Closed - Accepted

Response text:

Since the release of this report in 2003, Airservices has been
investigating the issue of non standard routes and non standard
levels in respect of recommendations R20030056 and R20030057.

As you would be aware, flight planning errors of this type are
routinely and reliably tracked through the ESIR application.
Airservices analysed this data and ascertained that non standard
routes are not normally a significant contributory factor to
Breakdown of Separation.

Nonetheless, over the past several years we have invested
significantly in examining technical solutions that would detect
flight planning errors and highlight them to the controller.

Our investigations determined that it was not feasible to use
either NAIPS (Airservices' flight planning system) or to develop a
separate database to process flight plans prior to entering the
Eurocat system. Further, we determined that the cost of
implementation in Eurocat for a warning system is high, and as
Airservices has now commenced work on its future ATS system the
lead time and cost does not support further work in this area... As
demonstrated above, Airservices has seriously considered the issues
raised in this report and has determined that there are no further
reasonable steps that can be taken to address the
recommendations.